Let's say that this weekend you want to go out and either find new hunting property or scout a new piece of hunting land that you just found. You don't just hop in the vehicle and head out with nothing right? This past weekend, I found a couple of new spots to hunt, and then a few days ago, I went and did a quick scout, and hung a few trail cameras. Whenever I do this, I find a few tools particularly useful to help me hopefully be more successful.

If there's one thing that can get a deer hunter's blood pumping in the summer, it's velvet bucks. Seeing bucks in the summer, watching them, and observing them from a distance, whether it be from your vehicle or sitting on the edge of a secluded bean field can be addicting. But what can be learned through doing this? Are there more effective ways to do it than you might think? Is there a true point to it besides just getting excited? Over the past few years, I've spent a lot of time behind glass searching for velvet bucks, and there are some important factors I've taken away from doing it.

Depending on how you hunt, summer can be a busy time. Hanging stands, scouting, running trail cameras, there can be a lot to do in the few months preceding deer season. Believe it or not, you can still pressure deer this time of the year, especially mature bucks.

Getting inventory of your bucks in the summer is a popular topic of discussion during this time of the year. It usually revolves around bait, minerals, or crop fields. But what do you do if your hunting property doesn't have any crop fields and your not allowed to bait or put down mineral? This is a perfect opportunity to utilize late summer and early fall scrapes. This is an idea I have been coming more and more intrigued with. It seems as though this way of inventorying what bucks are on a property is getting more and more popular. If you minerals, bait, or crop fields aren't an option for you, this is something that you've got to try.

It’s summertime and is a nice night outside. You are just sitting around the house, and decide to go out back a let a few arrows fly. All too many times, the common theme is you shoot for a while, maybe shoot halfway decent, and then had back inside, not really putting much thought into your performance out in the backyard. This summer, start taking your archery skills more seriously, and it just might reduce the chances of missing that big buck this fall.

It's June, and you know what that means, it's summer! Every year it's a thrill for me seeing bits of green in crop fields, knowing that I will be glassing bean fields in the coming months, and getting that itch to see what bucks are back, and what new ones show up. I can't wait for fall to be here, but at the same time, there is a lot of work that needs to be done in the summer months. I'm going to go over at a high level on how I attack summer, and the months leading up to archery season.